Medical images, such as X-rays, CAT (computerized axial tomography) scans, and MRI's (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), may be digitized to facilitate reading by doctors at remote locations. Hospitals and other healthcare providers commonly use electronic systems to capture and digitize the medical images. The medical images are typically transmitted from the modality to a remote image server such as a Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS). This transmission may occur over a network, such as an intranet or the Internet.
Additionally, the hospital may also transmit orders corresponding to the images to an order server, such as a Radiologist Information System (RIS). The orders may be requests for a doctor to interpret, or read, the images and return a diagnostic report. Orders may also contain information, such as a patient identifier, the procedure type associated with the image, patient demographic information, and a hospital identifier. Thus, orders may be submitted by hospitals and healthcare providers to identify the patient and instruct the radiologist to provide information for a specific medical condition.
Existing PACS and RIS systems are generally not configured to facilitate the type of workflow activities that occur in remote radiological reads, and therefore these systems cannot adequately plan for their usage. The need for radiological scans and remote radiological reads, particularly in off-peak (nights, weekends, and holidays) and emergency-driven settings, will vary significantly.
As a further complexity, only certain radiologists may be able to read individual studies. For example, a radiologist with a specialty of neurology is best suited to read radiology images of the brain. And even if the radiologist is medically qualified, the radiologist will need to be properly credentialed with the requesting medical facility (e.g., being granted privileges to practice in the medical facility) and licensed in the jurisdiction of the medical facility (e.g., being licensed by a State Board of Radiology where the hospital resides). Based on the large number of variables involved in selecting the appropriate radiologist for reads, it is particularly challenging for a radiology provider to accurately estimate staffing needs. Enhanced techniques are needed to improve the forecasting and prediction of usage for radiological image reads, particularly for radiology studies provided in connection with a teleradiology workflow.